Our family’s mission is to be a light through wisdom, adventure, and time around the table.
Our family mission ties directly into the mission we have here at Business On Purpose which is to liberate heroic business owners, just like you, from the chaos of working IN your business.
So that you can ENJOY your business, maximize the impact that it can have on your family and your community, and make time for what matters most!
For a ground rule...IGNORE THE NOISE and distraction…
“It pays to curate the incoming, to ignore the noise, and to engage with voices who are willing to show their work.”
We are about to SHOW you our work. It’s up to YOU to implement
Surveying hundreds of heroic business owners just like you over the past few years we have heard loud and clear one of the biggest challenges that you face in your business...the feeling that you will never be able to step away from your business b/c you are SO busy working IN your business.
Imagine the day, a lady named Josephine comes walking in your workspace, opens up a combo-locked suitcase and says simply…
“I am ready to buy your business at a 4 times multiple of your annual earnings IN CASH right here on the spot...with two conditions…
...First, we have to be able to run your business the same EXACT way that you run your business right now, from the sales calls, to the payroll schedule, to the lead generation, to the production and everything in between. I will not require you stay on an earn out...but we need the entire business map so your valued customers will never feel the switch…
Second, you have 30 minutes to make your decision and we will expect the roadmap to be in our hands and training to begin immediately using ONLY that roadmap as our training (you will not be allowed to “wing” any of it from your head!”
Could you do it?
You might say, “No one would ever do that.” Ummm, we’ve seen crazier.
Then you will say, “that is totally unreasonable to expect that a business owner would have her entire business mapped out SO THAT THE TEAM COULD RUN IT.”
Or is it?
We can say with definition that your business is certainly more “sellable” with a comprehensive systems roadmap in place because your team can run it!
Of course, this entire example may be totally lost you on because you would never have the intention of selling your business anyway.
No problem.
But wouldn’t you like your business to depend LESS on you, and more on the RIGHT TEAM? That is a business that compensates you with intentional time, meaningful freedom, and the money to pay for it all?
Don’t you want your business to help facilitate your passions and convictions? To serve others without killing yourself?
Wouldn’t you love to do what Eric Burton did, and leave your business for 31 days and it would continue to hum along?
We have determined through our own experience that about 8 out of 10 Small Business Owners are being OWNED by their business which means that even if they wanted to sell, no one would ever pay to OWN a business THAT OWNS THEM!
How do we break out of the prison of our own business?
How do we finally get off the treadmill?
How do we stop constantly putting out fires and feeling pulled in 17 different directions?
How do we stop the habit of throwing Hail Mary’s in our business everyday?
One way to try is to simply continue doing things the way you have been doing them. Of course we know where that leads...INSANITY!
The other way is to replicate the delivery of every part of our small business and make it so predictable others can run it the EXACT SAME WAY WE WOULD.
And, it also gives those team members the FREEDOM to use their skill set instead of being slowed by confusion.
We are so obsessed about trying to find the right people…when in reality the more predictable strategy is to build a great SYSTEM where a variety of people can come join in.
Remember the old Jewish phrase?
In Jewish lore, there is a powerful statement that we have found to hold true since the centuries it was first written, “Write the Vision down so that those who read it may run!”
The same is true for the processes that make up the Vision. In fact, we may even make our own statement to say, “Write the processes down so that those who read AND IMPLEMENT THEM, may run...the business!”
Truth is...if you don’t write it down...you don’t OWN it…and neither can your team
Did you know that your business doesn’t have to own you?
Did you know that you DON’T have to feel like you are on a treadmill?
Did you know that owning a small business doesn’t have to feel like a daily cliff dive with no visibility and no parachute?
Owning a business can be the ultimate opportunity to set others free to live in their skill set, to serve customers, employees family’s, vendors, your local community, and your global community...all at the same time!!!
That’s right. Your business can be a MASSIVE force for living out your convictions and serving others. BUT, it will never get there by doing the things that got you to this point.
As I built this presentation, over my screen was an incredible view of the tidal creek behind our house in the lowcountry of South Carolina. It is a constant reminder of a real, living, breathing process that just operates on auto-pilot every day.
Behind our house, the tide comes in anywhere between 7-9’, and then six hours later is completely empty. That’s right, 7-9’ of water floods the marsh and then completely empties out...EVERY 6 hours, 12 minutes and 30 seconds the tide comes in and the tide comes out...EVERYDAY!
The tides are a process. Just like the earth’s rotation and the seasons are a process. Processes are simply a “a series of repeatable actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end”.
When process is NOT in place, what you may get is creative, but it will not be repeatable creativity...and if it is not repeatable then OTHER people will not run it the way you want them to…they will make it up as they go.
When process IS in place, what you get is a replication of the original creativity. I’m so glad the sunset is a process, b/c it is something that we like to enjoy on repeat!
When you are starting your business, every time you bake that cake, repair that brake, or stack that crate, you are doing something that could be processed so you NEVER have to do it again…AND you are equipping someone else to live out their unique skill set.
When you process all of the individual steps, you are equipping and empowering others to bake that cake, fix that brake, or stack that crate so that you can focus on the other elements of serving customers, like payables, receivables, inventory, and office management.
Then once those are processed, then you are again equipping and empowering others to facilitate payables, receivables, inventory, and office management, soooooo that you can focus on generating new leads and onboarding new customers.
Then once those are processed, then you are again equipping and empowering others to facilitate to….
Hint: Rinse and Repeat
Do you see where this is going?
Imagine you had EVERY process in your business documented. It could be written down, it could be recorded on video…regardless, it brings massive clarity to every one you might bring into the business.
Imagine, just like NASA has EVERY single detail of flying a spaceship to the documented...imagine that you had EVERY process in your business documented.
THEN, once documented, you focused the majority of your time on training the processes to capable people who could replicate your brilliance and creativity!
Every basic franchise has done it from hamburgers to window washing. That’s what a franchise IS. When you buy a franchise, you are essentially buying a process map to walk you step by step through how to make a hamburger, or pick up garbage, or unload a truck, or change brake pads, or build websites.
Franchises exist for EACH of those services and thousands more.
I’m not even saying that you want to franchise your business...but wouldn’t it be great if others could run your business with the same clarity, MISSION and focus that you run your business with?
IT CAN HAPPEN!
You can do it!
See you at the top!
INSERT MOTIVATIONAL CLICHE HERE!
Welcome to the process map. On this one magic sheet of paper, you will document the title of EVERY major process that makes your business work.
With this one magic sheet of paper, the process clarity that comes with, AND (never forget) LOTS OF REPETITIOUS IMPLEMENTATION, you will create a repeatable business that pushes you towards your Vision, consistently lives out your mission, and is completely in line with your unique core values.
With this one magic sheet of paper, you will have built a curriculum for training that will make you feel like you are running a full scale business university for your team. Training will become a hallmark of your small business. The product will become less and less the focus and training your team to deliver a great product will increase with habit and time.
Story: Gerrick Taylor planting 52 palm trees...now GT spends his days working ON Taylors (vision planning, training, pioneering new locations, etc.) and coaching middle school football
In order to create a business that could run without you, you must build a team that is excited to run without you…which means you must build a map that accurately reflects your business so those who read it may run.
Welcome to the construction of a business.
In business, we tend to get distracted by what is on the outside. We see logos, signs, branding, and products and we think “Wow, they are CRUSHING IT!”
While inside, the owner of that business feels like they are the ones being crushed by the weight of chaos and burden. They own the business…but in reality the business owns them and they feel like somewhere deep inside what they have really built is a house of cards.
Every business has five cornerstones, on concrete slab foundation, and four wall systems.
These are the PRINCIPLES of the business…
Harrington Emerson, the American efficiency engineer known for his pioneering contributions to the field of management, once said, “As to methods (processes), there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The person who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The person who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
Let’s dive into PRINCIPLES
First, the five foundational cornerstones of every business whether you are building homes, remodeling back porches, selling ice cream
Next, every business must have a sturdy concrete foundation that is made up of the ingredients of culture and planning.
Finally, every business has four primary systems that must operate with repetition and predictability…again whether they are selling sport coats, architectural services, or decking products.
Four Walls: Admin/Acctg, Ops, Marketing, Sales Complexity of the walls and the systems that help them operateWe must be careful that we are not so lost and distracted by the day to day fires of payables, receivables, sub-contract challenges, material delays…and instead we build systems and people to work through that while YOU focus on the emotionally taxing and important work of working ON the business.
Don’t become so focused on the beauty of the interior design, that you forget to take care of the foundation.
To understand each of these is to build a business that makes time for what matters most with the one resource that is non-renewable…your time.
Talk to business owner after business owner and the one thing they will constantly preach is equipping and training their team. Talent grows as training grows, yet too many of us rely on “raw talent” and get burned in the end.
Give me world-class training with average talent who implements EVERYDAY over world-class talent and average training...EVERYDAY.
The little known secret is when you begin to offer world-class to average talent...the talent will eventually rise to the training!
Let me show you how to build a process roadmap that will buy you time for what matters most and get you off of the treadmill!
SHOW PROCESS ROADMAP and highlight…
One sheet of paper Start w/ the four systems Focus on one system Write the major processes within each system Adopt the Systems Mindset: the next task you do…DOCUMENT/RECORD it like it’s the last time you will do that task“Yeah Scott…we’ve got this…but it’ll just sit on the shelf like everything else”
You’re right…IF YOU LET IT.
So where do you put it so you will use it?
YOUR TEAM MEETINGS
Allow me to give you a real life example.
Our BOP Coaching team realized we had a breakdown in our New Client Onboarding process. One of our coaches brought this up, we added it to our Weekly Coaches Meeting written agenda…we reviewed it as a team.
Our process was updated, our Master Process Roadmap reflected it, and we moved on
The greatest gift you can give your business and your team is the gift of clarity from chaos.
How? IMPLEMENTATION.
I will take a half-baked plan with full implementation versus a perfect plan with half-baked implementation.
I quote Joe Calloway all of the time because it is so powerful, “Vision without IMPLEMENTATION is hallucination”.
If you take time to build out proper software with a proper processes, you will have greater clarity in the WHO of your business.
Josephine is standing with a briefcase of cash…could you take the deal??
FInd out right now…while you are sitting here and we go into Q&A time, I want you to scan this QR code and take this Healthy Owner Assessment that will give you a tangible metric as to the health of your business.
It’s free and wildly helpful.
